Coffee producing machines are widespread and commonly used. In particular, coffee makers, such as espresso machines are becoming more and more popular. In some known machines of this kind the ingredients for the beverage preparation are loaded in bulk form in a container. Several espresso machines are known, wherein a hopper is formed in the machine housing for containing coffee beans. The amount of coffee beans in the hopper is sufficient for the preparation of a certain number of cups of coffee-based beverages such as cappuccino and espresso. A coffee grinder is arranged underneath the hopper and coffee beans are delivered by gravity from the hopper in the coffee grinder, possibly with the help of a screw feeder or auger. The coffee grinder is started at each brewing cycle, so that fresh coffee powder is ground each time by feeding a pre-set amount of coffee beans from the hopper to the grinder. The hopper is replenished whenever required.
Once a certain kind of coffee beans has been loaded in the hopper, the user cannot change the kind of coffee used, until the loaded coffee beans are fully used. Thus, if for example regular coffee beans are loaded in the hopper, the user cannot prepare a decaffeinated coffee, until the loaded beans are completely used. A separate manual loading compartment is usually provided in this kind of machines, which enables the user to load a different kind of coffee. However, this requires a manual operation and moreover only coffee powder can be loaded, but not coffee beans. The brewing cycle, moreover, has to be controlled at least partly in a manual way, rather than being fully automatic. This can be time consuming and uncomfortable.
Machines are also known, where the coffee beans or other beverage ingredients are contained in a removable container. It is thus possible to have a plurality of different containers with different ingredient qualities therein, for example decaffeinated coffee beans and regular coffee beans. The user can thus choose the kind of beverage he desires and select the correct container, which he will then attach to the machine.
WO 2010/085850 discloses a coffee maker with a removable coffee bean container. The coffee bean container is provided with a bottom aperture, through which the coffee beans are delivered towards a coffee grinder arranged inside the machine housing and underneath the seat where the container is installed before starting a brewing cycle. The coffee bean container comprises a dialer for manually operating a shutter which selectively opens and closes the aperture. Once the container has been introduced in the seat of the beverage-producing machine, the user operates the dialer to rotate the shutter. The aperture is opened and the container is locked to the coffee machine. After use, the opposite manual operation is performed, to close the bottom aperture and remove the coffee bean container from the beverage-producing machine.